Urinetown

We have two felines at this point, Daphne and Figaro. Both are on the older side and have health problems that have resulted in many trips to the vet and ongoing medical treatment at home.

Daphne -- she looks like the cat pictured here -- has a respiratory problem that has been treated, among other things, with steroids and now with an inhaler.

She’s always been kind of different anyway, personality-wise, but over the last year or so, she began either missing her litterbox (she has four to choose from) or just doing her thing elsewhere in the basement, where they’re kept. Then she began occasionally going to the bathroom upstairs, in some cases in a serial-pooping fashion all over the kitchen (not so bad) and living room (bad).

Now she has taken to urinating in front of the fireplace. Sunday night, I built us a nice fire and then found that I kept smelling urine around the house. I finally figured out that she had doused the fireplace rug, I had knelt on it, and it was all over the knee of my jeans. I threw the rug outside, changed my pants, threw more logs on the fire, and realized it had seeped through into the carpet underneath, wetting another pair of pants, so I had to change again.

I was kind of annoyed.

Last night she marched over to the fireplace, squatted over a newspaper there and began urinating on it — right in front of us! This earned her a quick trip outside, where she used to enjoy hanging out on the porch and garden but now doesn’t care to go.

By the way, she hasn’t exhibited any other anti-social behavior. In fact, she spends much of her time now on the lap of one or another of us.

I’m assuming her bathroom problems are linked to her illness, but I’m not sure how, and this is really getting on our nerves. We’d bring one of the litterboxes upstairs, except that we figure our golden retriever would snack from it.

I won't ask you about HIS latest trick, which was bringing a soggy dead mouse upstairs, jumping on our bed and leaving it on the blanket in front of my wife, who began screaming for me.

But I'm wondering if anyone out there has thoughts on what we should do about Daphne, besides sending her to the farm. My wet knees and I will be very grateful for any suggestions.

I would talk to Karen the person who does the pet forums for the paper. She has dealt with this type of issue before.

As a cat owner most of my life, it sounds to me that she may be having kidney issues.

Posted By: sp | Nov 18, 2008 1:38:45 PM

My mom has 11 cats and was also a vet tech at one point in her life so I've heard her lament over of all types of cat pee problems.

First off I would take her to the vet to make sure she does not have a urinary tract or bladder infection. If those tests are negative, ask the vet for prozac. Not for you....for the cat.

It worked for one of my mom's cat's that had this problem, turns out the cat was depressed. There is a generic formula for Prozac and its pretty cheap so it won't cost you an arm and a leg either.

Good Luck!

Posted By: MOB | Nov 18, 2008 2:18:38 PM

Cat pee is the worst! Once it gets in your carpet or wooden floor boards, the smell is so hard to get out.

We have all changed the cat diapers on one of my sister's seven cats. She's going to be one of those weird cat ladies who leaves her diamond jewelry to her feline friends when she dies. She once came home early from a cruise in the Cayman Islands because the cat was sick. When she travels, we cat sit. I thought the diapers were absurd at first. But changing them was infinitely easier than scrubbing the carpet.

Posted By: Lu | Nov 18, 2008 2:22:52 PM

Miss Bessie Smith lives with me; we've been companions since July 1989 when I rescued her from a flea-infested home when she was five weeks old... I think that makes her roughly 133 years old in human terms.

She has provided me with shenanigans in those years:
* Bringing me voles from the garden
* Bringing me a snake from the yard
* Bringing me bats that she captured from underneath the door gap to the crawlspace onto my pillow in bed -- two nights in a row (I blocked the gap after the second incident)
* Bringing me a Blue Jay from the backyard into the house - and the ensuing madness trying to get the bird out of the house and the clean-up that followed: bird poop on the sofa, carpet, TV, windows, curtains

She has also been there when I tell her my troubles and she doesn't talk back and tell me whether I am right or wrong in my thinking.

She greeted me everyday when I came home from work before I retired. When my cat, Gershwin, was dying from cancer in 1998, she acted as his nursemaid -- snuggling up to him and licking him until the very end even though they weren't the best of friends.

Now in her senior years, I've had to put a small chair next to my bed so she can climb in with me. She "naps" about 23 hours a day. I have no idea what she dreams about, but I see her twitching during her sleeping hours.

She occasionally misses her litter box when she pees: she sometimes doesn't crouch down far enough and overshoots onto the linoleum floor in the bathroom. Clean up is a small price to pay...

I keep telling myself that I'll be lucky to aim my pee when I'm 133!

Posted By: Jesse | Nov 18, 2008 3:44:22 PM

That's a wonderful perspective on the joys -- and occasional non-joys -- of living with companion animals. Thank you.

Posted By: Bill White | Nov 18, 2008 3:52:48 PM

Besides her illness, have there been any major changes in the house or way of life? Our cats get mad when we do things like move the furniture around, or bring out the Christmas tree, and then to show their displeasure, they pee somewhere other than the litter box.

Merry Christmas to us.

Posted By: Kate | Nov 19, 2008 11:30:07 AM

No, not really. The only real change for her has been this respiratory thing, which basically is cat asthma. Nothing new in the house.

Posted By: bill white | Nov 19, 2008 11:56:05 AM

As MOB said, trip to the vet is in order. It might be illness (UTI or other similar problem) because cats are normally incredibly clean animals. If tests rule out an infection or inflamation or that has been treated with antibiotics or another round of steroids, a "mood elevator" (Princess Sparky was on Elavil--dirt cheap antidepressant) for years after many rounds of tests and antibiotics.

There's also a plug in called Feliway (comes in a spray, too, but the plug in is long-term) that works to elevate the cat mood.

And there's stuff you can treat the "accident" spots. You'll want to use a black light to locate the spots and then treat them. Check with a good pet store for suggestions on the best product. It's not cheap, but neither is new carpet.

Yesterday we the got bad news that my brother and sister-in-law had to euthanize their 6-year-old Rottweiler/German shepherd. She was still struggling to breathe despite lung surgery 2 weeks ago. After a 2:00 AM phone call to the vet and a 4:30 AM trip to the vet ER, they decided not to operate on her lungs a second time and to let her go.

Tawny and her brother Rex are by far THE BEST DOGS ever. I know. I've cared for them and learned to love them as family members - and I'm not even a dog person. The decision to not provide further treatment was an agonizing one, but my brother and sister-in-law knew they had already spent money they could ill-afford, and couldn't spend anymore on an operation with an uncertain outcome.

My question is: when it comes to pet health care, when is enough ENOUGH?

Posted By: Lu | Nov 20, 2008 11:54:21 AM

Lu, I feel for your brother and sister-in-law. We currently have a 3 year-old German Shepard Rottweiler mix and he is the sweetest dog you can imagine.

I went through the loss of two dogs, brother and sister from the same litter who died within 3 months of each other from cancer (two different types). They were only 5 years old.

We considered chemo for the first dog, but there was no guarantee at all that it would work. And even if it did it would only prolong the inevitable for about 6 months max. While dogs don't get sick from Chemo like humans do, her quality of life would have been affected because she did not like going to the vet and she would have to go about once a week for treatment.

We decided to keep her comfortable and we had her euthanized once it seemed she was no longer comfortable and was not happy.

Her brother's cancer came on too quickly and he died within a week of diagnosis and no treatment would have been effective.

I always said if there was a chance that she could have lived happily for several more years I would have gone with the chemo, regardless of price, but that is a very personal decision.

Posted By: MOB | Nov 21, 2008 2:16:20 PM

With today's advances in medicine and technology for both humans and their non-human buddies, we face tough choices. The anxiety level gets ratcheted up when the family finances can only pay for either person care OR pet care, but not both. Gone are the days of "Old Yeller" when the ailing animal was simply put out of his misery. Perhaps it was the psychic trauma of that Disney movie that has led to all these modern day options and indecision.

Posted By: Lu | Nov 21, 2008 3:18:47 PM

I don't watch Disney movies because of all the animal and maternal death themes. Why can't we just have a nice happy animal movie?

Posted By: MOB | Nov 21, 2008 5:17:12 PM

Here's a Thanksgiving update. The family celebrated turkey day with a new addition to the family. The newly adopted and renamed Misty is a 3 year old, short-haired, medium-sized black dog with a delicate pointy nose. She came last week from a shelter in Whitehall and joined my brother's family in Bucks County specifically to cheer up the depressed Rottweiler, Rex, who hadn't moved off of his bed since losing his sister Tawny 10 days ago.

Misty was nervous and jumpy, but she made the trip to Aunt Barb's at the Jersey shore for Thanksgiving with flying colors. Afraid of humans at first, she gradually allowed all of us to pet her and love her and feed her bits of the feast, and relaxed in her own turkey-induced tryptophan coma. She never barked. And Rex also perked up around his extended family.

Barb's six cats, never having been around dogs before, also survived the invasion by keeping out of sight upstairs. We gathered together and received the Lord's blessing... and nobody pee'd on the floor!

Posted By: Lu | Dec 1, 2008 1:06:58 PM

Sounds like a success. We had three dogs at our Thanksgiving dinner, and they did fine, although my sister's Australian shepherd isn't crazy about my golden retriever.

Posted By: bill white | Dec 1, 2008 1:11:11 PM

One of my dogs bit our turkey in the butt....I though I had locked him out of the kitchen but then I realized he wasn't in the living room and ran to the kitchen and there is was....taking a bite out of the cooked turkey that was resting on the counter....

He has Bill White's metabolism too...had I not caught him he would have eaten that whole 20 lbs turkey in less than a minute and wouldn't have gained an ounce.

Posted By: MOB | Dec 3, 2008 6:09:29 PM

MOB- I'll bet he was thankful for the bite he got! Sounds like the scene from Jean Sheperd's A Christmas Story. Just be glad you didn't eat your holiday meal at the local Chinese restaurant!

Posted By: Lu | Dec 3, 2008 7:53:58 PM

Lu--yes, this dog has pulled many "A Christmas Story" stunt in his short life (4 yr).

About 3 thanksgiving's ago, he was about 1, he used the tip of his claw to edge a homemade (from stratch, down to the crust and peeling of apples) apple pie to the edge of the counter and stuck his snout right in the middle.

That was also the Thanksgiving were I found out how the gas on our stove kept coming on without the burner being lit.

My husband and I were accusing each other for months of trying to blow up the house. Then on this Thanksgiving because I was trapped in the kitchen for so many hours I discovered how it was happening.

Sprocket (the dog's name) would claw at the bells we have hanging on the back door knob (the bells let us know when the dogs have to go out if we are in another room) and this door is right next to our stove. If I was in the middle of something and couldn't get to him right away he would start clawing at the oven/stove knobs instead, turning just the gas on, not lighting the burner. The darn dog was trying to blow up the house because we weren't letting him out right away. He is very intellegent but only uses it toward evil.

Know we have to remove all of the knobs from our stove unless we are cooking.